Advocates are calling for people to protect the Net again

Nov 5, 2014 15:46 GMT  ·  By

Advocates for net neutrality are rallying up following news that the FCC is getting ready to propose a move that won’t exactly protect the Open Internet.

Fight for the Future is calling for immediate action and urging people to rally up and attend emergency protests Thursday, November 6.

“The FCC is set to annihilate net neutrality and open the floodgates for rampant Internet censorship and abuse. This is the moment we’ve been building for. In the last year, Fight for the Future has grown to more than 1 million members! We are stronger than we’ve ever been and we have the power to save net neutrality, but signing petitions and making pho ne calls isn’t going to be enough,” reads an email sent out by the Fight for the Future group.

They want people to gather round on November 6, in the evening, in front of government buildings in their area, holding glowing cell phones, laptops, and tablets to shine light on the “growing corruption in DC” while demanding real net neutrality.

Evan Greer, one of the leading members of the Fight for the Future movement, said that there are about 3,500 people that have already signed up for the protests, although there’s plenty of time left for more to join in.

There are currently 12 protests listed and more are popping up. There are a couple in California, one in Las Vegas, Austin, Boston, Chicago, and so on.

“People are furious that after an overwhelming public outcry that sent nearly 4 million comments to the FCC demanding net neutrality, the agency is still deciding to move ahead with a plan that would destroy the open Internet as we know it. These protests are just the first wave in a series of escalating actions. The government should have learned from SOPA: the Internet does not back down when it comes to free speech,” Evan Greer told Softpedia over email.

How did we get here

As you may remember, for the last few months, the FCC has been debating on the topic of net neutrality. The commission was open to comments, during which time 3.7 million messages were sent by the public, people who want to keep the Internet free.

The original proposal the FCC came up with would have allowed ISPs to create fast lanes for those sites and services that have a deep-enough pocket to pay up for this. Such a move would allow ISPs to control what their customers have access to and also to force various big name companies to sign up for privileged access by throttling with their connection.

The latest rumor is that the FCC has settled on a hybrid proposal. On the one hand, the broadband connections to consumers would be lightly regulated, allowing ISPs more leg room to charge their customers. On the other hand, they want to classify the back-end service, the one that deals with content providers, as a common carrier. This would give the FCC enough strength to police deals between companies and broadband providers.